Knit scarves are wrapped around the bird sculptures that inhabit the median on Highway 52 in Wausau just west of Marathon Park on Thursday. / Dan Young/Daily Herald Media

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Daily Herald Media

City taxpayers will fund a legal opinion on whether Wausau violated any rules or laws in building a west-side median project that included bird sculptures — but the public cannot yet find out what the lawyer decided.

City Attorney Anne Jacobson denied a Daily Herald Media open-records request this week seeking the report from Axley Brynelson, a Madison law firm. The request was denied, Jacobson said, because the council has not yet given the city permission to release it.

The Wausau City Council will meet behind closed doors later this month, Jacobson said. At that time, it will have the opportunity to decide whether to release it.

This fall, the city paid companies to spruce up several medians on Highway 52 Parkway, adding metal birds, landscaping and irrigation to the city’s west-side entrance for a total of $112,000.

The city hired the Madison law firm for an hourly rate of $170 after City Council member David Oberbeck in November asked Jacobson whether Wausau had bypassed several state laws for the project.

The city has not yet been billed for the legal opinion, Jacobson said.

Daily Herald Media reported last month that the city might have violated state laws that require it to seek estimates from multiple vendors on projects that cost more than $25,000. As part of the median project, the city paid $48,400 for 18 metal bird sculptures to a single vendor, EchoScapes of Wausau, without allowing others to apply.

In addition, a state law orders municipalities to apply to the state’s Department of Workforce Development before hiring private companies to do work for public projects totaling $100,000 or more, in order to determine the state-mandated wage rates for each worker.

It appears the city did not apply for wage rates for any part of the $112,000 median project completed this fall on Highway 52 Parkway, according to state records reviewed by Daily Herald Media.

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“I have been working with outside counsel who is putting the finishing touches on a legal opinion examining compliance with the procurement policy, state bidding requirements, and the prevailing wage law,” Jacobson wrote in a Dec. 6 email to Oberbeck, as well as Public Works and Utilities Director Brad Marquardt, Finance Committee Chairman Bill Nagle and Finance Director MaryAnne Groat.

State law allows government bodies to meet in closed session to meet with attorneys giving “advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved.” Jacobson cited that section of the law as justification for the meeting to be closed.

Meanwhile, the city has set aside another $220,000 in its 2014 budget to extend the project to medians on the west side of Highway 51.

In addition to Oberbeck, council members Keene Winters, Robert Mielke and Lisa Rasmussen have also raised concerns about the project and its expansion.

“I would like to see the second phase that was planned for the west side of the highway be discontinued completely based on cost and the mixed reaction that has been received in the community to the initial group that was installed,” Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen hopes to discuss the project’s expansionat an upcoming Economic Development Committee meeting, she said.

Last year, the city hired outside legal counsel to see whether it could legally use tax-incremental financing money to pay for a road-widening project on Thomas Street. The report, which found the city’s actions were legal, was released in an open-session meeting in September. Jacobson said that report was presented in open session because it was not obtained by her.